Guild Wars 2

Currently, I find no way to see how much bonus crit change I’m getting from this trait at any point.

Can there be something like a buff counter or anything to let us know for QoL sake.

Yes, actually that would be useful. This reminds me of that revenant trait that increases your crit chance dramatically during combat – I was fighting with the hero panel open so I could see the crit chance changing, but having it as a buff counter would have made that so much easier.

Well, you can already see the additional critical chance, since it’s an additional 2% per stack of vulnerability. Therefore, just track the amount of vulnerability on the monster.

As for a buff counter or other personal indicator, it would be impossible. The bonus to critical chance from Decimate Defenses is unique to each monster and the stacks of vulnerability they have at the exact instant one of your attacks hits them.

You would need a rolling counter for every creature within visual range equal to the stacks of vulnerability they have, which could anywhere from a single one to over twenty different counters.

Example:
You have a base 30% critical chance.
Mob A has 25 stacks of vulnerability.
Mob B has 20 stacks of vulnerability.
Mob C has 10 stacks of vulnerability.
Mob D has no stacks of vulnerability.

You hit all four with the same Gravedigger, and as such you have four different critical hit chances.

Against Mob A, you have a 80% chance to critical.
Against Mob B, you have a 70% chance to critical.
Against Mob C, you have a 50% chance to critical.
Against Mob D, you have a 30% chance to critical.

Diak Atoli.2085:

Well, you can already see the additional critical chance, since it’s an additional 2% per stack of vulnerability. Therefore, just track the amount of vulnerability on the monster.

As for a buff counter or other personal indicator, it would be impossible. The bonus to critical chance from Decimate Defenses is unique to each monster and the stacks of vulnerability they have at the exact instant one of your attacks hits them.

You would need a rolling counter for every creature within visual range equal to the stacks of vulnerability they have, which could anywhere from a single one to over twenty different counters.

Example:
You have a base 30% critical chance.
Mob A has 25 stacks of vulnerability.
Mob B has 20 stacks of vulnerability.
Mob C has 10 stacks of vulnerability.
Mob D has no stacks of vulnerability.

You hit all four with the same Gravedigger, and as such you have four different critical hit chances.

Against Mob A, you have a 80% chance to critical.
Against Mob B, you have a 70% chance to critical.
Against Mob C, you have a 50% chance to critical.
Against Mob D, you have a 30% chance to critical.

hmm i guess that makes sense

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Yes, actually that would be useful. This reminds me of that revenant trait that increases your crit chance dramatically during combat – I was fighting with the hero panel open so I could see the crit chance changing, but having it as a buff counter would have made that so much easier.

This seems like a trait that should have a specific buff counter to help you keep track of what your crit rate is.

Sarrs.4831:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Yes, actually that would be useful. This reminds me of that revenant trait that increases your crit chance dramatically during combat – I was fighting with the hero panel open so I could see the crit chance changing, but having it as a buff counter would have made that so much easier.

This seems like a trait that should have a specific buff counter to help you keep track of what your crit rate is.

It would be constantly changing …

Diak Atoli.2085:

Well, you can already see the additional critical chance, since it’s an additional 2% per stack of vulnerability. Therefore, just track the amount of vulnerability on the monster.

As for a buff counter or other personal indicator, it would be impossible. The bonus to critical chance from Decimate Defenses is unique to each monster and the stacks of vulnerability they have at the exact instant one of your attacks hits them.

You would need a rolling counter for every creature within visual range equal to the stacks of vulnerability they have, which could anywhere from a single one to over twenty different counters.

Example:
You have a base 30% critical chance.
Mob A has 25 stacks of vulnerability.
Mob B has 20 stacks of vulnerability.
Mob C has 10 stacks of vulnerability.
Mob D has no stacks of vulnerability.

You hit all four with the same Gravedigger, and as such you have four different critical hit chances.

Against Mob A, you have a 80% chance to critical.
Against Mob B, you have a 70% chance to critical.
Against Mob C, you have a 50% chance to critical.
Against Mob D, you have a 30% chance to critical.

I feel like your understanding of the wording of the trait is incorrect and is leading you to slightly wrong assumptions. The wording is “Striking a foe with vulnerability increases your crit chance [by 2% per stack]”. Another way to word that for clarity, by my interpretation, is “If you strike a foe who has vulnerability, you gain a stack of 2% crit chance”. Seems fair right?

Now, your interpretation implies that the act of placing a stack of vulnerability gives you 2% crit chance, and thus you could track your stack by number of vuln stack (which would be problematic even if your interpretation were correct because you may not be the only person outputting vuln). However, I simply don’t think that anet intended the use of the word “striking” to mean “placing”. Strike means “to hit”. I think if they meant it as you have interpreted it would read more like “Every time you apply vulnerability to a target you gain a stack of 2% crit chance”. Therefore, I assert that applying vulnerability itself does not give you the stack of crit, but hitting a foe while they are under the effects of vulnerability does. In other words, by my reasonable interpretation of the wording, you cannot track stacks by looking at vuln. The closest way to do it is a mental counter of your skill hits (this also means that skills with rapid channeling are most effective).

Anyways, I’m not trying to make this a case of semantics, as correctly interpreting the tooltip changes how we apply the use of the trait. It would mean that a player can do a mental count of the number of hits they do to get an approximation.

What I HAVE discovered to be true is that the buff is dynamic to each individual foe.
What I can guess is true is that stacks seem to erode about as fast as vulnerability does, which averages 2-3 seconds per stack.

It seems to work just fine in PvE, but its usefulness will be hit and miss in WvW or PvP due to harder time with upkeep and condi clears. It’s value depends on what kind of might you can otherwise accumulate with Chilling Victory instead. Knowing what I know now, I am less enthused about this skill than I used to be and I prefer might stacks I can track over crit chance I can’t. You really see how lackluster it is if you remove all other precision from your gear and build.

One thing I know for certain is that we really do need Anet to give us some more details on this.

I have always thought that the trait works like “vulnerability also increases your crit chance by 2%”, rather than hidden stacks of crit chance you gain in combat depending on enemy vulnerability.
On another note, this became the basis of a fun PvE vuild, coupled with +50% crit chance in shroud (Death Perception) to give you a static 100% crit chance against champions and world bosses.

Considering it’s “enemy to enemy” It’s not possible to see this as a buff icon. Considering each enemy will have a different number of vul stacks on them.

It’s already easy enough though – 2% per 1 vul on the enemy… at 25.. it’s 50, 20 it’s 40, 10 it’s 20 etc etc.

Mandar.9813:

What I HAVE discovered to be true is that the buff is dynamic to each individual foe.
What I can guess is true is that stacks seem to erode about as fast as vulnerability does, which averages 2-3 seconds per stack.

That is because it is just the effect of vulnerability stacks.

It is simplest to look at it from the perspective of the thing being hit.

If I have vulnerability stacks on me I take X% more damage where X is the number of stacks.
If it is a reaper with Decimate Defenses attacking me I also have an additional 2*X% chance to be hit by a critical strike.

I think some of you are making this a bit too difficult. It is very easy to track as you get additional 2% crit chance per vulnerability stack. If the target has 7 vulnerability, then you gain 14% crit. This goes from 1 to 25 stacks, so 2% to 50% added crit chance.